Black Jack, Volume 13

Black Jack is a mysterious and charismatic genius surgeon who travels the world performing amazing and impossible medical feats. Through highly trained, he freelances without a license because he distains the medical establishment. This leads to run-ins with the authorities and unscrupulous, sometimes criminal, individuals. Because Black Jack keeps his true motives secret, his ethics are perceived as questionable and he is considered a selfish, uncaring devil.

An Animator Suffering from Cancer: In a chapter devoted to Pinoko, we follow her to the pool where she is starting to take swimming lessons. The nineteen-year-old in a tween’s body is struggling with her slow development and is anxious to learn to do what most everyone else her age takes for granted. So after finding herself in a bit of a verbal bind, she decides to take the plunge only to quickly sink like a rock. Her body made of prosthetics, she had little chance of floating let alone swimming very far. But a proud teen came to her aide. The boy is a genius. A budding animator he is working on the animated adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s Jungle Emperor Leo but there is something lurking within him that might take his dreams away…cancer. Pinoko knows too much about the disease, and she knows that there is someone in her life that can treat it like no one else ever.

Death of an Actress: Marilyn Swanson, the top female actor of the 40’s, is suddenly seeing a revival among the cinema intelligentsia. Her films are being broadcast on TV through almost every channel in prime time and every major film festival is devoting screenings to her performances. She was a rare beauty that captivated a generation on and off the screen. But age has caught up to her. Because of her pride she cannot make any appearances at these events, and worst of all she cannot perform again without regret. So she asks a medic with god-like skills to reverse time, if only briefly so she can dazzle audiences one last time.